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Saturday, November 5, 2011

The Cheap Triathlete Presents: Marathon Milestones

I briefly covered this in my post about the Baltimore Marathon, but here are the 6 milestones that I'll be looking out for tomorrow:

This is the reality check milestone. It's that time during the race when one might think to oneself "huzzah, I have run for nearly one full hour. I have but a mere four hours more of this race" if one thought very formally to oneself in a British accent. Okay, fine maybe I only imagined it in a British accent.

This is my now-I'm-into-it mile. By this point, I have hit my stride and I'm ready to take on another 19 miles. Typically, the weather is good, the people are great, and I'm happy to be running.

I don't know who this guy is, but hopefully he doesn't mind being in my blog. Anyway, mile 10. I mean, come on. When is 10 NOT a milestone?

OMGMILE13IMHALFWAYDONE is a vague approximation of what goes through my head once I hit this mile marker. I mean sure, it's not quite halfway but it might as well be. And sometimes they throw a 13.1 mile marker in there for funsies anyway. PS - the Big Sur Marathon mentioned in the pic above is one that I've heard is beautiful. Hopefully someday I'll get out there to do it.

Pretend that the 17 mile marker isn't there because what I want you to focus on is mile 16. I got this one from my friend Sharon. While running with me during my very first marathon, she mentioned that mile 16 is where the remainder of the race is in single digits! It might be a convoluted milestone for some, but it's one of my favorites.

Another Big Sur sign. Mile 20 is the big one. It's the mile when the reality of your impending completion of a MARATHON starts to sink in. "Holy crap! I'm almost finished!" Interestingly enough, it also makes that last six miles feel longer than the previous 10 just because you're so close and so far.

After mile 20, it's all guts for me. Others might have a milestone between 20 and the end, but when I hit 20, I know it's time to stay strong and finish it out. Those last few miles can go by painfully slowly, especially 23-25. In New York City, however, that's also one of the most adrenaline-filled parts of the course because runners near the park, where there are wall to wall people behind the barricades.

I'm so excited about tomorrow. No matter how I finish, it's going to be a great day.